550 REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK 



CURATOR'S REPORT ON MUSEUM WORK. 



1908-1909. 



It is once more in tlie zoology room that the chief work of 

 the year has been done. The row of desk-cases illustrating 

 the lower invertebrates, from Protozoa up to crustaceans and 

 arachnids, has been finished as far as is possible at present. 

 The fourth row of desk-cases is now the only one that has not 

 been taken in hand; it is devoted to the insects, and the chief 

 difficulty connected with it is the need for a large nurriber of 

 fresh specimens to replace old and now worthless material 

 previously exhibited. Recent donations have provided us 

 with a fair stock of butterflies to draw upon, but until some 

 money is available for purchases there is little prospect of 

 making up good representative sets of most of the other orders 

 of insects. We hope soon, however, to make a beginning with 

 some of the cases ; and in preparation for this we have fitted 

 covers over the glasses to keep the new specimens from the 

 light. The covers are in the form of lids made of thin " three- 

 ply " board, which seems to answer the purpose very well. 



But the most important piece of work done in the zoology 

 room has been the complete overhauling and re-installation 

 of the fishes. In recent reports I have referred to the fishes 

 as the most discreditable section of the museum collections. 

 The specimens were overcrowded, many of them were thrown 

 into shadow by the old wooden shelves, and all of them 

 presented a monotonous brown colour. The labelling, too, 

 was unsatisfactory, and the classification out of date. All 

 these defects have now been remedied. The fishes have been 

 coloured as nearly as possible to life, and are now shown up 

 against a clean, tinted background, with no shelves to obscure 

 the light. They have been re-arranged on a more natural 

 and modern system of classification, and provided with clearly 

 printed labels giving not only the name, but some information 

 also regarding the habits and distribution of the fish. Much 

 credit is due to Mr. Fletcher for the skill which he rapidly 

 developed in painting the fishes in their natural colours. 



